what exactly are we paying tuition for in the fourth year of med school?

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powermd

powermd

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This just occurred to me as I write yet another tuition check for an obscene amount of money. I have yet to do one thing this year that actually cost my own school, or the schools I've visited any money. It would've been more efficient for me to just write a few checks here and there for the odd lecturer, or preceptor who spent time entertaining me. Maybe one more check to the administration for getting my ERAS stuff in order. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty ripped off.
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I totally agree. The only lectures I've even been to this year were those put together for the residents. I just don't see the expense of fourth year.
 
i've heard that it's "the most expensive vacation that you'll ever have".
 
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You have to be covered for malpractice, for one thing ... Look at it this way--your first two years of education cost WAY more than you paid in tuition, so you're still coming out paying only about a 10th of what your education costs (even less if you're at a state school).

🙂
 
Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
You have to be covered for malpractice, for one thing ... Look at it this way--your first two years of education cost WAY more than you paid in tuition, so you're still coming out paying only about a 10th of what your education costs (even less if you're at a state school).

🙂
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Can you actually prove this assertion? Let's assume I'm at a private school and annual tuition is $36,000 (roughly what I pay).
 
Don't have time to look for proof right now, but we just had a talk about tuition and it is true that it is costing the school a lot to teach us. I don't know why, but the figure was around like $120,000 per year to teach one student. They said it is suppose to include teachers, lab stuff, bodies for anatomy, and other materials I can't really remember. So I'll look for proof, but not that you know your education is really costing a lot more than you are paying for it, don't waste it!!!! 🙂
 
I don't believe that. Sure, it is probably true for public schools that get state subsidization to offset lower tuition fees, but what about for private schools? How are they getting $95,000 extra dollars to teach? The answer: it doesn't cost that much.
 
Originally posted by UCSBPre-Med1
How are they getting $95,000 extra dollars to teach? The answer: it doesn't cost that much.
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Actually, the answer is: endowments, government funds (yes, even private schools, especially med schools, get them--the public/private distinction is a matter of percentage), and research grants.

The estimate I posted above was just that, an estimate, but it's one I've heard multiple times in the context of medical education.

The point of the original post was that we are essentially paying to work in the hospital our 4th year, which may or may not be true, but whether you like my exact number or not, it costs far more to train us than we actually pay, and I think most people would rather have it split up over 4 years versus coughing up, say, $100,000 at the beginning of MSI.
 
I agree man, I've pretty much been killing flies as I wait for interviews to come trickling in. The truth is, that without the sword of damocles hanging over your head (pass/fail/honors evals to determine your future), its really hard to give a flying f%$& at this point, just as long as I pass. I often wonder what the hell I'm paying for as well, and I did sign up for some "toughies," just to get slapped around a little and not lose my edge, but the hell with it, its like being a senior in high school all over again. Pretty cool!
 
Damn man, don't worry about losing that edge. The sharpening stone called intern year will hone that sucker. In the meantime 1/2 days!
 
Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
Actually, the answer is: endowments, government funds (yes, even private schools, especially med schools, get them--the public/private distinction is a matter of percentage), and research grants.

The estimate I posted above was just that, an estimate, but it's one I've heard multiple times in the context of medical education.

The point of the original post was that we are essentially paying to work in the hospital our 4th year, which may or may not be true, but whether you like my exact number or not, it costs far more to train us than we actually pay
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I have to disagree. Our medical education costs far more than we actually pay? I can understand a harvard or stanford medical school could survivie if this is the case because of their outragous endowments. How about chicago medical school? They are medical school only, private, and have over 1000 students. How the hell can it exist? The last time I checked, the CMS tuition is 40K a year and the school is doing fine. If I have to guess a number for the real cost of our education, it should be around 40K a year.

Do not let those Admin people fool you when they raise the tuition again. Hi, their salaries raise every year, so do our tuitions.
 
If it costs a medical school $120k per year per student to teach them, then they are doing something WRONG!

I promise you that I could start up a new med school and teach everybody perfectly adequately for a fraction of that 120k cost.

This reminds me of the AMCAS fiasco. Those fools swear by their lives that it costs them hundreds of dollars per applicant to run their office. What a bunch of BS. If they are really spending 2-300 bucks per applicant, then they are doing something WRONG.
 
I guess I'm puzzled by why anyone is surprised that our education is subsidized even at a private school ... Go talk to your dean if you don't believe me (like anyone has time, I know) ...

I'm not saying I giggle every time they raise tuition on us or that schools always manage their finances well, but I'm a little astonished that it doesn't cost more ... What do you guys think they do with interest generated by the millions a private school has in its endowment? Why do you think alumni organizations are so aggressive about donations? No one could afford higher education if one had to pay the full cost of it.
 
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Yo!

I know its been four years, but DOWN WITH AMCAS!!!! What a serious crock of horse****! Common application, my ass! First, you blow a wad of money to those jokers, because they make the application process so smooth for you, then you get secondary applications from interested schools. You'd think that you made the first cut, but this is just a very well disguised vehicle for donations to the school. And lets not talk about all the masturbating you have to do to answer all those stupid essay questions! One school asked: "Describe a situation in which your morals have been challenged." I was 21, at the time, I didn't have morals, and in retrospect, I havent' developed any in the meantime either. Most schools I got secondaries from pocketed my application fee with one hand while giving me the finger with the other. And some didn't even bother to tell me that I had been rejected. I swear, its so easy to feel totally helpless and at the whim of these people in those situations. They should be held to some sort of professional standard, like definite dates for sending out interview invites, and rejections and stuff. I'm kinda going through that right now, but I gotta say that the ERAS/NRMP business is much more streamlined and user friendly. Thank the good lord!+pissed+
 
most schools with large endowments have fairly strict rules governing its use in meeting the yearly budget. my alma matter has an endowment around 5 or 6 billion, but i think just 1/10 or so of the yearly budget is met with monies earned from the endowment. some of the ivies rely a bit more heavily on the endowment, but i don't think any of them meet their budget with greater than 1/3 endowment support. as for research grants directly subsidizing student education, i would like to see how this is true. i have worked in basic science research for 4 years for several different pi's and none of their money goes educating students. the university is the one subsidizing researchers whether it be giving start up costs for assistant professors which can be 250-500K for a new lab or in providing a small baseline level of support to the research. the most common use of our endowment was endowed professorships, but this does not mean that their funding is 100% from the endowment, it is just a trick of names. bottom line is that even wealthy privates are extremely cash flow dependent because students foot a large amount of the bill.

around 50% of students pay the full bill of 40K (if living on campus), so right there you have something like 120 million dollars. factor in there 50% of students and you are probably up to 200 million coming in a year from tuition.
 
Originally posted by jwin

around 50% of students pay the full bill of 40K (if living on campus), so right there you have something like 120 million dollars. factor in there 50% of students and you are probably up to 200 million coming in a year from tuition.
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im not following the math here.... from what i am trying to gather is that your calculation would be 40,000 x 120 students = 4,800,000 dollars. how did you get 120 million?
 
i forgot to calculate 4 different years of medical students....
even then...it'd be 19,200,000.

i guess that still is a brick load of money...
 
i was referring to my undergrad with 6500 total students
 
Originally posted by MacGyver
If it costs a medical school $120k per year per student to teach them, then they are doing something WRONG!

I promise you that I could start up a new med school and teach everybody perfectly adequately for a fraction of that 120k cost.
Click to expand...
Bull. I don't know what the actual cost is, but a private school puts out way more per student than the tuition actually covers. Schools make their money from investments and from donations, particularly from alumni. If you think of how much maintenance for a campus, payroll for professors and staff, insurance, utilities, and all that other stuff comes out to, it amounts to far more than the students are covering.
 
The total tuition taken in by a medical school actually accounts for only a few percent of both, their total operating budget and revenue generated- as per the dean of our medical school. If you only consider the MD students and discount the graduate schools, the 20 million or so is change compared to the hundreds of millions they take in and spend. There is no way possible for anything, especially infrastructure and maintenance, to be paid for simply by student bills. A lot of the money medical schools generate is actually from their private practice-- aka Faculty Pratice- which is affiliated with the hospital, and as mentioned donations, research grants. It should also be noted that residents salaries are paid by the government- though they're part of the school's graduate medical education, they're not paying the 6 bucks an hour the residents make.

So the bottom line is, what you're really paying for... drumroll... is the actual education part of it. As a 3rd year, when you spend most of your time on the wards, malpractice aside, you're not exactly a cost drain on your medical school. You're more or less paying for the right to learn.

Which is why the cost of 4th year is absurd. Most of us are more or less done in February to March and are on vacation until our May graduation. Take out the couple of away electives you did... and you just shelled out 35 g's for a parking pass.
 
how does typical 4th year go? How does this vacation thing work exactly, how do people usually set up that year?
 
jwin said:
most schools with large endowments have fairly strict rules governing its use in meeting the yearly budget. my alma matter has an endowment around 5 or 6 billion, but i think just 1/10 or so of the yearly budget is met with monies earned from the endowment. some of the ivies rely a bit more heavily on the endowment, but i don't think any of them meet their budget with greater than 1/3 endowment support. as for research grants directly subsidizing student education, i would like to see how this is true. i have worked in basic science research for 4 years for several different pi's and none of their money goes educating students. the university is the one subsidizing researchers whether it be giving start up costs for assistant professors which can be 250-500K for a new lab or in providing a small baseline level of support to the research. the most common use of our endowment was endowed professorships, but this does not mean that their funding is 100% from the endowment, it is just a trick of names. bottom line is that even wealthy privates are extremely cash flow dependent because students foot a large amount of the bill.

around 50% of students pay the full bill of 40K (if living on campus), so right there you have something like 120 million dollars. factor in there 50% of students and you are probably up to 200 million coming in a year from tuition.
Click to expand...

"large endowments"... heeheehee. It isn't the size of the endowment, it is how it is used.
 
I always though med student tuition was just part of the "money in" on the balance sheet. The amount of tuition charged is based on what the school feels it can charge without diminishing student quality. Faculty only spend a small amount of their time teaching, their salaries are part of the "money out" on the balance sheet. I could be wrong, but I doubt med center admins are sitting around saying, well Joe's total pay is X, he spends Y% of his time teaching students, at $Z/hr we need to charge the students $A/year to cover the salary for Joe for his teaching contribution.
 
HolyMoly said:
how does typical 4th year go? How does this vacation thing work exactly, how do people usually set up that year?
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Our school still has a fair number of requirements (Sub-I, ICU/ER, remaining clerkships from that could be taken 3rd or 4th year). But, there is usually a fair amount of elective time. And we get a set number of vacation weeks (and some save up all their vacation time so that can be complete done with medical school at a very early date).
 
Well, if it does cost $120K per year, then I bet every school could save $240K in years 1&2 by just giving us a syllabus to study and telling us to come back on x, y, and z dates for tests.






Oh, wait...that's pretty much how it works already. So basically we're paying for 3rd year, anatomy & other labs, a standardized patient program, and for our Dean's Office to keep track of us and send out some paperwork in 4th year.
 
Galaxian said:
Yo!

I know its been four years, but DOWN WITH AMCAS!!!! What a serious crock of horse****! Common application, my ass! First, you blow a wad of money to those jokers, because they make the application process so smooth for you, then you get secondary applications from interested schools. You'd think that you made the first cut, but this is just a very well disguised vehicle for donations to the school. And lets not talk about all the masturbating you have to do to answer all those stupid essay questions! One school asked: "Describe a situation in which your morals have been challenged." I was 21, at the time, I didn't have morals, and in retrospect, I havent' developed any in the meantime either. Most schools I got secondaries from pocketed my application fee with one hand while giving me the finger with the other. And some didn't even bother to tell me that I had been rejected. I swear, its so easy to feel totally helpless and at the whim of these people in those situations. They should be held to some sort of professional standard, like definite dates for sending out interview invites, and rejections and stuff. I'm kinda going through that right now, but I gotta say that the ERAS/NRMP business is much more streamlined and user friendly. Thank the good lord!+pissed+
Click to expand...

:laugh: ask a bs question, get a bs answer

good luck with your residency app! :luck:
 
powermd said:
This just occurred to me as I write yet another tuition check for an obscene amount of money. I have yet to do one thing this year that actually cost my own school, or the schools I've visited any money. It would've been more efficient for me to just write a few checks here and there for the odd lecturer, or preceptor who spent time entertaining me. Maybe one more check to the administration for getting my ERAS stuff in order. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty ripped off.
Click to expand...

Your tuition check only covers a fraction of what it costs to educate you. You are still paying the bill for those lectures you either attended or didn't attend first and second year. You are also paying for the priviledge of collecting the hours so that you can graduate. 😱
 
Med school tuition is similarly overpriced for the first two years. It is this content that the majority of the lay public believes is actually "pre-medical" since the portion of learning that is clinically based is insignificant relative to the basic sciences. Honestly, MS 1 and 2 could and should be taught on the undergraduate level at a much cheaper price. I'm paying out the wazoo to be taught a bunch of stuff that I already knew. Thanks but no thanks. The profs would be happier focusing on their research anyway.
 
Galaxian said:
I agree man, I've pretty much been killing flies as I wait for interviews to come trickling in.
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Hey, do you 4th yr students get permission to skip some rotations to do your interviewing? And when exactly does interview season start and end? It's mid-November now, so I thought you guys were going through the interview season now.
 
BlondeCookie said:
Hey, do you 4th yr students get permission to skip some rotations to do your interviewing? And when exactly does interview season start and end? It's mid-November now, so I thought you guys were going through the interview season now.
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Many schools give you a vacation month (or two or three) to be used for interviewing (or studying for Step 2, etc). If you don't want to use both vacation months in my institution for interviewing because you want a nice fat vacation the month before graduation then use 1 month for interviewing and do something easy in Nov/January like anesthesia or radiology - rotations where they'll let you out if need be.

And I totally agree about the tuition. I don't see why it costs the same as other years when I have 2 vacation months and a ton of months where I do nothing!!
 
BlondeCookie said:
Hey, do you 4th yr students get permission to skip some rotations to do your interviewing? And when exactly does interview season start and end? It's mid-November now, so I thought you guys were going through the interview season now.
Click to expand...


My school gave a vacation month but you were requried to take electives during fourth year the rest of the time. Most elective rotations (other than the required electives primary care and surgery) would allow you to miss a couple of days for interviews. We scheduled our required electives early and scheduled easy electives like radiology, dermatology etc during the interview months so that our vacation time stayed intact for that month after the MATCH and before graduation when all you have to do is show up and get your diploma. Most of us took Step II in August after a two week vacation in July when we studied.

You were not allowed to skip any electives but many electives did not have the attendance requirements that the primary care and surgery elective carried.
 
You 4th yrs get a whole month off?! Lucky dogs! I was just wondering, could you schedule your easy electives last and save your vacation month so that you don't use it and actually finish one month early? When does interview season start in earnest? Is it right after the holidays? Sorry for the rookie questions, but how do you get contacted for an interview, email, phone, letter? Thanks.
 
Wow, a lotta nonbelievers early on in this thread!

My understanding is that medical education costs 80K, 100K, 120K, somewhere in that range, per year. That's the actual cost. So we pay, at most, 50% of the true cost.

Also, I've seen the figure that tuition comprises 2-4% of a medical school's operating budget. The vast majority of the school's expenses are faculty salaries. The budget gap is met by endowment and grants.
 
fakin' the funk said:
Wow, a lotta nonbelievers early on in this thread!

My understanding is that medical education costs 80K, 100K, 120K, somewhere in that range, per year. That's the actual cost. So we pay, at most, 50% of the true cost.

Also, I've seen the figure that tuition comprises 2-4% of a medical school's operating budget. The vast majority of the school's expenses are faculty salaries. The budget gap is met by endowment and grants.
Click to expand...

It depends on how you define costs and expenses. I have a hard time imagining the added cost of a medical center with students vs doing all the same research, etc, only minus the medical students is that high.

But yes, med student tuition is just a small part of the operating budget.
 
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